Run (Run Duet #1) (11 page)

“Christ! Just get me to the goddamn I-59 already so I can shake this tail.”

“What tail?” He looked behind us and shrugged, completely oblivious.

“The tail in that ugly dark blue monster looking truck three cars back. That’s them. They were never after you to begin with. This is all about me, Shaw. That’s why he only hired two men to come. For some reason, he wants to see me on a metal slab badly,” I replied, more to myself than Shaw.

“Who?”

“You sound like a fucking owl. Povikov, that’s who. Carter wouldn’t come after me. He didn’t lose anything he couldn’t replace . . . besides our families are distantly related. The Callahans and the Carters go way back. Back to Northern Ireland. Both families were hard-core Real IRA supporters and what not. I’m not sure when the families split but we’re talkin’ distant relations. Nothing within in the past three or four generations or so,” I explained as I maneuvered the car in and out of traffic without driving too fast or obvious.

“So how do you know Carter wouldn’t come after you?”

“Because I just do. My aunt—the one in Nevada—she’s got connections and they extend across the United States. His own brother would come after him if he laid a hand on me.”

“Which one?” Shaw mumbled as he took a bite of his burger. “It’s not like they’re a small family or anythin’ like that.”

I touched the back of his head and rubbed his neck. “Aww, don’t worry your pretty little head about it, just get me to the freeway already.”

“Speaking of that, it’s coming up in zero point four miles and you’re in the wrong lane.”

“You could have said something beforehand, you know.”

I quickly maneuvered the car into the right lane and took off on the freeway, entering traffic on I-59 going south doing seventy before I merged to a middle lane. Last thing I needed was to get stuck behind someone on a Sunday afternoon drive even though it was Saturday.

I pushed the car between ninety and one hundred for at least fifty miles while Shaw looked out for cops and highway patrol. I didn’t breathe easy until the tail could no longer be spotted and we briefly entered Alabama before cruising right into the state of Mississippi.

That was when I finally could enjoy my lukewarm dim sum after we briefly pulled to the side of the road and Shaw took over driving duties.

“I’m doing the speed limit here. No way in hell I wanna get stuck in a Mississippi jail. We should have grabbed someone’s Tennessee plates so we could blend in. Having New York plates is like begging a cop to pull us over,” he muttered under his breath.

“Well then city boy, I best believe you oughta get a move on so we can get out of this state and into Louisiana pronto. We can spend the night and decide what we’re gonna do from there.” I bit into a pot sticker and even though I didn’t have any sauce to go with it, I moaned at how good it tasted.

“What do you mean? I thought we had a plan—go to Mexico. We can drive right across the border in Texas—”

“Are you mad?” I stopped eating and swallowed the food in my mouth. “My cousin lives in Baja Mexico. You know what state sits above Baja? California, you fuckin’ idiot. I am not going through cartel country if I don’t have to. We stay in the States until we can cross over in California.”

“And you don’t think that’s pushing our luck?”

“Okay, white boy. If you think you’re tough enough to cross hundreds of miles in Mexico without getting us shot, stabbed or carjacked then by all means, cross over in Texas. Me? I like my head where it is, thank you very much.”

“I just think we’d have a better chance if we left the States.”

I shook my head sadly. “If you were that much in a hurry to get out of the States, why didn’t you head north when we left Boston? Canada is another country last time I checked. Not only that but it’s modern and they speak English and we could blend in because there are a lot of people who look just like us.”

“Why do I get the feeling you just don’t want to go to Mexico?”

“Because, Shaw, I don’t
want
to go to Mexico. I’d feel safer with my family in Nevada than there. It’s too dangerous just to be in a place that’s constantly sunny and cheap. What do we do when we run out of cash? Are you gonna start selling dime bags of coke on the streets? Run into the wrong guy and find out you’re selling in a cartel’s territory that takes serious offense against shit like that?”

I tried to calm myself down but nothing seemed to work. “I just want you to think, Shaw. There are plenty of other places we can go. Mexico is not our only option. We haven’t committed any crimes and the cops aren’t looking for us, just a couple of Boston Povikov Bratva members with delusions of grandeur. The Kitaev Bratva controls the whole west coast and southwest. No way is Povikov going to go against Erik Kitaev. It’d be suicide.”

“How do you know so much about all of this? Last time I checked, they don’t teach this shit in college. Last I heard Dimitri Koslakov controlled the western states.” Shaw glanced at me for so long, I thought he was going to run us off the road.

“Well, times change and Koslakov pissed off some major heavy hitters. He’s on the run, and not exactly focused on business since Kitaev put out that bounty for the bastard killing his father.”

“Heavy hitters, huh? Your family doesn’t have mob ties, do they?”

I laughed out loud. “How would that be possible when my mother is half French Creole and half Irish and unlike you, my father is a hundred percent Irish. Hell, I’ve got more Irish blood running in my veins than you do, you half-Commie bastard.” I glanced over at him and stuck my tongue out at him. “Besides, most of the people in my family are back in Belfast. I have a couple aunts and uncles who live in Omagh but they moved there after the infamous bombing. They’re just hard working, blue-collar people. I’m not gonna lie and say that some of them aren’t as rotten as my dad because they are. They’re ordinary decent criminals—they’ve accepted Northern Ireland will always be part of the UK, blah, blah, blah. So yeah, they sell drugs, participate in human trafficking, et cetera. You can understand why I obviously don’t want to talk about them.”

“Well, I’ll give you this much—you inherited their sharp fucking tongue. Calling me a half-Commie bastard like I wished for this kind of shit in my life.”

“Yeah, I know you didn’t wish for any of this but then again, neither did I, Shaw. But it’s the one damn reason that gives you a ‘get out of jail free’ card. Povikov isn’t going to kill you or even harm you but the skanky ass gash you happen to be with who used to strip at his club is fair game. With me, he doesn’t have anything to lose. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time. If they find us—especially in Mexico—I’m dead anyway. I’m just delaying the inevitable, don’t you see?”

“Fuck, Liv!” He was quiet before he balled a fist and beat the steering wheel. “What do you want from me, huh? Where do you want to go? I thought we agreed on Baja California . . .”

“That’s the point—we didn’t. I may have agreed at first but the more I think about it, I think we should split up. You take this vehicle and I’ll buy one in Louisiana. That way if we get any more tails on us, you can make it. I’m not the one who’s on parole and at least if you’re alone, the border patrol won’t assume we are Bonnie and Clyde in the making. I’ll meet you there—even if I decide not stay there and want to go somewhere else.”

“You’d leave me? Just like that?”

Argh! This man was driving me crazy. Even in that husky, sex-filled voice, I could still hear the same little boy afraid of being abandoned by me more than his own brother.

“Pull the car to the side—”

“But New Orleans—”

“—will still be there when we arrive.”

Shaw pulled the car over and allowed the engine to idle as he put it in park.

I reached over and held his hands in my face. “Who ever said I was leaving you? They’re after me—we’ve established that. Two vehicles are better than one, and you know I can take care of myself.”

He pulled me on his lap and took possession of my lips with is own, his tongue thrusting into my mouth as he ground against my jeans-clad sex with his hard, jeans-clad cock. “How much time are we talking about us being apart?”

“A week tops. We’ve got our burner phones and you can text me anytime you want.”

“Why now?” he murmured as he licked my neck’s pulse point before he kissed further down.

“I’m not sure this car doesn’t have a tracker. I know it didn’t before because my cousin checked it when we were in Brooklyn but we had a tail in Nashville and they could’ve installed something. We’ll never know until we get to New Orleans and have it checked out.”

Shaw obviously wasn’t listening to me as he somehow managed to pull off my jeans, undo his own and slide them down over his narrow hips.

“Damn it, I’m serious! Do you really want to be caught on the side of the road in Mississippi fornicating? They’d probably throw us both in jail for lewd acts in public or something.”

He stared into my eyes, and I swear I’d do anything just to see those crystal blue irises light up. “Does it look like I’m giving any fucks about what I’m about to do, Liv?”

I shook my head slowly as he ripped my lace thong off and placed me right on his cock where I slid down easily as if I was being impaled. “Damn, give a girl some warning.”

“I did,” he whispered before he began to thrust inside of me as my hands steadied me by being pushed against the roof of the car. He leaned back in his seat, and pumped inside of me as he rubbed my clit with his thumb. “Fuck, you’re so beautiful and you’d know I’d do anything to keep you, right?”

I moaned out loud as I gyrated my hips against his thick dick, and kept up with his action due to all my years as an exotic dancer, and a naturally athletic body. Although I wondered how long it would last if he kept up his infamous sex drive with me alone.

What the fuck was I talking about? I’d Lorena Bobbitt his dick in a heartbeat if he cheated on me so I’d just have to make sure my man was always satisfied all by my lonesome.

“You don’t plan to leave me, do you?” He still fucked me but he’d slowed his strokes down as he rubbed my clit in a rounded motion that wouldn’t have me last much more longer.

I rolled my eyes as I looked at the ceiling. “What are you talking about, baby? Where’s my hot alpha male with sexy crystal blue eyes and the most gorgeous cock I have ever seen?”

He grabbed my chin with several fingers on the hand that wasn’t stroking my clit. “Don’t throw my own words back at me, Liv. I asked you a simple question. You know how many bitches I’ve sworn on the Virgin Mary for? And guess how many fucks I give for lying to them? Zero, just like the Chris Brown song. So don’t try to snow me over.”

This was the most uncomfortable conversation I’d had in a long time. Mostly because his unsheathed cock was inside me, and he stroked my clit at the same pace as he fucked me. I was so close but he’d purposely slowed down. We were wasting too much time on the side of the road in a Bumfuck state I really didn’t wanna get caught fucking my boyfriend on the side of the road.

“No, sweetie,” I began as I devoured his lips and slipped my tongue easily in his mouth as he took over. His passion was like being too close to a lit flame. It was hot, all-consuming, and eventually it would sweep me into its inferno.

I knew what he was afraid of: karma. He’d screwed with so many women’s heads over the years, since he was fourteen, he thought I might do the same thing he’d done to all those broken hearts left in his wake.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t that type of woman. I had my own secrets and to be honest, that’s why I needed us to get away from Boston and Povikov as quickly as possible. Sure, I’d saved my vaginal virginity for him but you couldn’t work in an exotic club and not have clients that offered more than most people made in a month for something extra. So I took the money and didn’t feel bad about it. But if Povikov told him about all the shit he had on me, would he still feel the same about his sweet, perfect Liv?

Of course not. Like so many men, he was a misogynist. It didn’t matter that he’d fucked enough women to fill a football stadium but I was his precious Madonna—the closest you could get to Mary, Mother of God. He’d be sickened by what I’d done. We both knew it so answering his question wasn’t quite easy to answer. In the end, he might fuck me over instead.

Playing my cards close to the chest had nothing to do with whether I’d leave him. I loved Shaw—even for all his fucked-upness, he was mine. His kisses were like poetry and the way he handled my body was like a symphony. Why would I
want
to leave him? Ever?

“Liv?” he asked again but I took over and began slide up and down his shaft as if I was half-mad. I had to fucking come and he was delaying the evitable and adding time it would take for us to get to New Orleans.

It wasn’t a simple question; the real one he wanted to ask me was could he handle the fact that in some ways, I’d been as big of a whore as he had been? Where his was accepted, mine wasn’t. Would he glance at me with those clear blue eyes, disgust in his face and feel like he’d taken the chance that his dick might fall off after fucking me bare?

Don’t get it twisted, I always used protection and I’d had my annual gynecologist appointment after I quit Povikov’s club the day before I graduated from Boston University. I’d made enough and could support myself until I decided what I wanted to do with my life.